


Raining Nicks and Strangers

by Hawkscape



Series: Redtail Tales [6]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Anger, Angst, Blood and Gore, Carrying, Fluff and Angst, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gore, Guns, Holding Hands, Hugs, Light Angst, Loss of Limbs, Mild Gore, Mud, Naked Robot, Needles, Other, Rain, Robot Feels, Robotics, Robots, Roughness, Swearing, Weapons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 08:10:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6276418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkscape/pseuds/Hawkscape
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While walking in the Commonwealth, problems occur when it starts to rain and Nick malfunctions. Will an old friend arrive in time to help or will our heroes be left out in the cold?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rain Rain Go Astray

It was raining. This might have been glorious before the war when deserts barely got three inches a year, but after the war, everything was a desert and all the water was irradiated to some degree. Redtail and Nick were far from any large settlements when it started, so they just sucked it up and kept walking, maintaining banter to chase away the cold seeping through their clothes. Redtail walked point with the detective sauntering shortly behind. “So, might be a little late for this, but your waterproof right?” 

Nick laughed in his gruff voice. “Take a little more than this drizzle to stop me. Never been outside in rain this bad, though.” 

Red got a sudden mental image of the synth wearing a duck inner tube. They snorted at the idea. The rain seemed to be increasing steadily. “Of course, you need to maintain your image of a noir detective patrolling the streets for rancorous villains on a dark and stormy night.” The cowboy dipped their hat in front of their eyes, letting the stream that had formed on the brim flow free. “You’re bright eyes shining like beacons for lost souls.” They released their hat and let out a bark of laughter at their own prose. They waited for a witty remark from Nick, but when they got none they stopped and turned around. “What? Hit a little too close to th-” 

He was down. The detective was face down in the mud, coat splayed around him like a burial shroud and hat askew. “NICK!” Their voice rose above the now deluge around them with sharp panic. They lunged towards him while scanning around them for enemies that could have taken him out. They couldn't see anyone through the combination of their water soaked sunglasses and the seemingly never ending curtain of rain descending around them. The distressed wastelander turned their attention back to their downed friend as they slid next to him on their knees. They grabbed him by his shoulders and shook vigorously. “Come on Nicky!” The synth was surprisingly hard to move for his thin frame. Red was able to get his face off the ground and started slapping it lightly. “Wake up Valentine! The middle of a flood is not the best time to take a nap!” His face still had its built in lines of tension, but the synths blank eyes betrayed his inactive status. Red was starting to freak out, this was bad. They put all their strength into sitting the detective upright. His joints seemed to lock in places and be weirdly slack in others. 

“Nick Nick Nick Nick Nick!” They started shaking the synth back and forth by his shoulders. They jolted to a stop when he began to convulse sharply. Red thought they might have woken him up before noticing his eyes were still blank. “Ah, no, stop that.” The synth payed no mind before seeming to lock up again and expel water out of his mouth. The cowboy understood. He was waterlogged. They shook them by there shoulders while yelling at them, trying to postpone what they knew they would have to do. “Come on Nick! I was a good friend for once! I asked you about this! I asked you, I asked you!” They stopped their assault on the automaton and sighed out shakily. Harassing their currently malfunctioning friend probably wasn't a good use of their time. Both of them were completely soaked and covered in mud. Red looked up at the darkened sky and signed once more before putting their useless glasses in their pocket. They stood up and surveyed the slumped over detective, trying to figure out how they could carry the metal man. 

They tried to carry them bridal before realizing that their arms could not handle that. They tried to carry him piggy back, but it ended with them holding the detectives legs while his torso hit the ground with a thud. After retrieving the hat lost in that endeavor they started trying anything. Grabbing him around the torso and hobbling forward didn't work. Neither did dragging him. Red was able to finally get him situated by holding him by his arms and draping the detective over their back and hunching over while walking. Nick's shoes still dragged slightly in the mud, but it was the best they could do at the moment. Everything was wet and muddy and Red was getting a bit frustrated. They had no one to complain to, so they just huffed out their annoyance. Their was a small shack they'd mapped out a ways from here and Red figured it was their best bet. It would still be a hell of a walk with their supplies and a 200 pound automaton handing off their back. There was nothing else they could do so they just kept walking. 

The rhythm of the walking and the rain lulled them into ruminations about their current situation. What if Nick didn't wake up again? Red couldn't bare to think about it. Not just that they'd never talk to there friend again, but that the hardened detective would have been taken out by some rain. It was so anticlimactic with the smoke and fire lifestyle he lived. The cowboy tried to keep their mind from wandering from their task at hand, but warm memories of their partner flooded forth anyway. A grip on their shoulder when rage threatened to overtake them, a flick of the hat when coming through a tough situation, a soothing rub on their back shortly after an ill advised drinking contest against Hancock. They always knew in the back of their mind that the wasteland was tough and any one of their companions or himself could be lost in the blink of an eye. They had always tried to live in the moment because of this, but now the moment was filled with them carrying one of their potential fatally wounded best friends on their back through a rain storm. 

Red started to cry as the potential hopelessness of the situation sunk in. They hadn't cried in a long time but they couldn't stop their mind from spiraling into echos of blame and sadness. They had always thought crying was a useless evolutionary trait. What good did it do to make yourself blind to attack and obviously in anguish? They were ashamed that they were losing it, but the shame of crying compounded with the anxiety of Nick's state made them shake harder. They had to remind themselves that they were Redtail. Scourge of evildoers across the commonwealth. The one who'd survived being shot in the head. They had lived several lifetimes, each time meeting new faces and new problems, never giving up. They had juggled the fates of entire factions in their hands flawlessly, but now they were reduced to crying in the rain over an old synth. They weren't just an old synth though, he was Nick. Their partner. 

Red tried to shake the tears of there eyes, but it only caused more water to fall from their hat down their already soaked neck. They readjusted Nicks weight for a moment while scanning around them. The rain was still making the distance they could see fairly limited, but the cowboy thought they could make out a promising silhouette in the distance. They adjusted their course slightly and continued their trudge in its direction. Before long, the silhouette formed into a more tangible shack. It was small and rough, but the roof looked intact. Jackpot. They kicked it into overdrive and pushed on to the promise of someplace mostly dry. Their vision tunneled, only seeing the shack. A beacon in a literal storm. 

The door was mercifully unlocked as they almost busted it down by stumbling through it with the combined weight of them and the detective on their back. They shut the door and dumped both Nick and their pack unceremoniously on the floor before collapsing their themselves. They hadn't felt there muscles ache like this in a long time. They didn't care that the floor was old splintery wood, it looked like the most inviting bed at the moment. However, they fought against the urge to lie still, knowing they had to get a fire started or they would freeze. Not to mention that Red had to try and dry out Nick. 

They stumbled back to their feet and pushed together some bricks and old broken furniture to make a suitable fire with a flare they had in their pack. It sparked right up, despite its slight dampness and they were soon basking in warmth and light in the otherwise dank shack. They slumped slightly while pondering what to do next. Getting dry was their first concern so they decided to go with that. Unfortunately, most of the clothes in their pack were wet, so they decided to focus on the waterlogged gumshoe right then. The soaked clothes on him probably weren't helping his problem. Getting his circuitry closer to the fire would be easier without them. They rehearsed this story in their head, just in case the detective decided to wake up to find his partner undressing him. They were able to get his coat, hat, and tie off easily enough, but the shirt kept wanting to stick to his outer casing, making it difficult to get off his arms. They kept tugging on the shirt sleeve with one hand while holding the synth steady with the other. The garment finally gave way with a loud rip as it caught on Nick's skeletal arm. Red stilled before laying the hole filled shirt out on the ground next to the coat. “Whoops.” 

They sat on their haunches and swayed forward and back in contemplation. “Fuck it.” They said before clicking open the synths suspenders and adding his trousers to the line up of slowly drying clothes. The detective looked disturbingly like the limp synths they had seen strewn throughout the scrap heaps across the commonwealth. They pushed thoughts like that to the back of there mind and admired their work before the question of ‘Now what?’ intruded on their triumph. They tried to think of any knowledge they could use to solve this, even going back into memories they had not visited in a long time. Images of Ken dolls thrown into furnaces were all that popped up when thinking about the detective before them. They would have laughed if this wasn't so serious. 

They kept thinking about rice for some reason. ‘Weren't you supposed to put wet electronics in rice? Or no, was that frozen peas? In a bag? How would frozen peas dry something out? Wait no, frozen peas were used to put on bruises. Yeah, yeah, you were supposed to put wet gizmos in rice. Their were some problems with relying on solutions from lifes past. Mostly, they weren't all that practical. 'Did rice even still exist? If it did, Red probably couldn't find enough. The image of a Nick-sized amount of rice seemed a bit hard to come by, even if you were in the trade. 

They were snapped out of there ruminations to an odd sound bellowing through the shack. Their ears perked up and they stilled listening for it again. ‘Was it thundering? Because that thunder sounded a lot like a…’ They froze and held their breath. ‘No. I refuse to believe I have that much bad luck.’ The chorus of nos continued in their mind as the dove for their pack and began to quickly go through it for any weapons that weren't to damp to use. They heard the sound again and it seemed closer. ‘Apparently I have that much bad luck’ They crouch-walked over to one of the dirtied and cracked windows of the shack and peered out through the pouring rain. A little ways away, but not nearly far enough, there was a distinct outline of a deathclaw. They tried to quite their roaring heart with reason. ‘Calm down. It won't notice us. Were fine.’ As if hearing Reds thoughts, the beast turned around and started lumbering towards the shack at a steady pace. The cowboy slammed themselves back down from the window. ‘How did it notice me?’ They scanned around the room before their eyes fell on the fire in realization. They were basically a light house. Only one word passed through Reds mind as they looked over at the defenseless synth and started equipping themselves to go out and fight. 'Protect'.


	2. Deathclaw Disarming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: here be gore

Red slinked out the door on the opposite side of the shack where the deathclaw was coming from. They peeked around the side of the shack to find the beast still on a b-line for the light-filled room. The cowboy sat on their haunches and readied their weapons with their slick, gloved hands. They hated using rifles, they couldn't aim for shit, but if it got the walking wood chippers attention from a distance, it would do its job. They lifted the riffle and aimed it at the beast's center off mass. They let off two shots and it knocked them on their ass from the recoil. “Ah shit.” Red massaged their shoulder where the rifle had kicked back at them and looked up to the deathclaw roaring in pain. 'Wait, I hit it. I mean, yes I hit it. I mean RUN!' 

Despite knowing exactly what was going to happen when they got the beast's attention, the shock of surprised adrenaline that coursed through them as they started to run wasn't lessened. Their boots slammed down in the mud with the deliberate force of someone who knew they would die if they slowed. They unsheathed there 10mm and grabbed at their belt to get at the grenades they had put there. They struggled to get it unhitched from the clasp holding it to there belt. It suddenly gave way, but unfortunately its pin gave way along with it. Red wasted no time in throwing the live explosive behind them in a panic. It exploded mid-air and a little to close to them, sending them flying forward slightly where they skidded to a stop in the mud. They didn't have time to check for any damage as their adrenaline kept them going. They stumbled up and kept running, chancing a glance behind them to see if they could slow down to fire off any shots. That was a mistake. 

The grenade hadn't seemed to slow the menace down at all. How close the monster was would have made Red scream if their jaw wasn't locked tight with fear. The deathclaw slashed out and they tried to dive forward out of the way, but the claws caught the back of their jacket and sent them tumbling again. It felt like fire burning across their skin and they knew they'd been caught. Unfortunately, this time, their gun tumbled out of their hands. 'Shit shit shit.' There mind was torn between trying to get up again and trying to find their gun in the rain. This allowed the beast time to wind up and slash at them again from the right. 

The air was knocked out of them as they went flying through the air. Time seemed to slow down as they flew. During this time, they noticed some things. First, that they couldn't seem to breath. Next, that their right arm seemed to be longer then usual. Lastly, that the reason it was so long was because it seemed to be severed below the shoulder and promptly flying away from them due to the force of them spinning through the air. Time unfortunately started moving at a normal speed again as they hit the ground unexpectedly and rag dolled into the mud. A pain worse then anything they had ever imagined exploded through their arm and they let out a shriek like a feral ghoul. Their vision went white as they clawed at their stump with there good hand, trying in vain to stop the blood and the pain. Their screams mingled with the sounds of a deathclaw wailing and the sound of gunshots. Their lungs suddenly seemed to not contain any more air as their head lulled to side, catching a view of a figure striding evenly towards the beast. It had on a long coat and a fedora. It looked like it was Nick. The last thought that went through Red's blood-deprived brain was, 'Why does he have his clothes on?'.


	3. Stranger Danger

The Mysterious Stranger stepped over the body of the deathclaw they had just downed with a practiced swagger. He reloaded his revolver and made his way over to the downed cowboy. He holstered his gun and bent over the wastelander. “Aw, c'mon Tail-feather, we can't keep meeting like this. Last time I saw you, you were ruling the Mojave.” He took out a stimpak and some bandages, eyeing the severed arm severely. “Oh, how far we have fallen.” He injected the stimpak and wrapped a tourniquet around the stump that was left. 

The Stranger picked Red up along with the severed limb and trudged back to the small shack. He kicked open the door and surveyed the small fire and the various objects littered around. Where was the synth? “Honey, I'm home!” 

The sound of a gun cocking by his right ear made him freeze. “Doing just great babe, hows Jim and the kids?” 

The Stranger turned his eyes slightly to the synth that was dressed surprisingly similar to him and let out a small huff. “I would put my hands in the air officer, but I'm currently carrying your bleeding out boss.” 

Nick's eyes flickered from Red to The Stranger before lowering his gun. They seemed to work in unison to get the cowboy laid out on a bed roll. The detective let out a grunt. “Would now be the time to ask who you are and how this happened?” 

The Stranger shook his head. “Later. I have some stim and med-x in my bag. What do you have?” 

Nick motioned his head towards his and Reds packs that were tossed in the corner. “About the same.” They both nodded and got all that either of them had out. Nick cocked his head to the side and looked at the cowboys form intensely. “Blood pressures and heart-rate are lower then it should be. Breathing's real shallow, to.” 

The Stranger looked from the severed limb to the cowboy's prone form. “Think we can reattach it?” 

The synth's eyes took a similar path before shaking his head. “Injecting the arm wouldn't do any good, no circulation. Not to mention the tissue's already decomposing.” 

The Stranger pushed down his hat and fiddled with one of the syringes of stimpak. “They never lost their arm before, but I guess there's a first time for everything.” 

Nick looked at the stranger oddly as he injected the stimpak into Reds shoulder. The flesh started to knit together as the bleeding slowed. The cowboy let out an unconscious groan that made the detective join in in pumping them full of medicine. When Red's various wounds sewed up completely they both ceased their assault. The flesh was still red and irritated around the wounds and although Nick had never experienced it, he knew that the rapid healing of big wounds like this still left extreme pain in their wake. They wouldn't be able to move much when they woke up. The detective checked their vitals to make sure they would wake up and they did seem to be leveling out, slowly but surely. 

The Mysterious Stranger let out a sigh, and after throwing all the used syringes in the corner of the room, sat down against one of the walls. He tipped his hat down as if he was about to settle down for a rest. Nick wasn't going to let him go that easily. He knelt in front of the man and flicked his hat up. “Hey there Stranger, I appreciate the help, but now that our little problem is averted, I'm going to need you to answer some questions.” 

The Stranger didn't seem to perturbed by the synth's close proximity. He reached a hand in his coat, causing Nick to tense, but fortunately he was only reaching for a pack of cigarettes. He popped one in his mouth before offering the synth one. Nick shook his head. He wasn't in the mood right now. He needed to work out what had happened to his partner, how he had ended up in this shack, and how this stranger was connected to it all. 

After blowing a puff of smoke courteously not in Nick's face, the stranger spoke. “You've been watching me for a while haven't you, Nick Valentine.” 

Nick kept his face stony at the revelation that this stranger knew him. “You're a very mysterious character. Mystery's are my shtick. I would rather you start to elaborate on my other interest...” Nick nodded his head to Redtail. “and how they lost a rather important part of their anatomy.” 

The Stranger's eyes sparkled as if they were about to retell a particularly thrilling camp fire story. “That's a long story Nicky.” The synth was beginning to not like this character. “I've been fallowing you and your 'partner' for a while, but after the rain started to come down I lost both of you. Next thing I know, I see Tail-feather lugging your bucked-of-bolt ass through the pouring rain, covered in mud, looking generally like the self sacrificing angel of death they are.” The Stranger took a long drag on his smoke before continuing his story, leaving Nick time to ruminate on the reason for the odd gap in his memory and the fact that Red was most likely in their condition because of his stubbornness. “Anyway, they found this shack and all seemed hunky-dory until a deathclaw showed up.” He let out a low whistle punctuated by more smoke. “They have the worse luck, let me tell you. Anyway, it started to wander towards your little camp site and since you were still presumably out like a light, Tail-feather couldn't have that. So, they shoot at it because that solves most problems in the wasteland. Unfortunately, they were a little under-powered and got the shit kicked out of them. I was able to take it down before it killed them, but I was a little to late in some aspects.” 

Nick had had enough of this guys attitude and grabbed the front of his coat hefting him off of the ground slightly. “Alright buddy, your explanation isn't quite satisfying me somehow. I have an entire file of you swooping in to save the day and then mysteriously vanishing without a trace. Now, you suddenly decide to not only to fail to help my partner until their almost dead, but then to stick around afterwards to try and make nice. Acting like were all old friends chatting around a campfire. Something feels a bit out of place. Mind elaborating?” 

The Stranger let a slow smile spread over his lips. “Relax Detective, we all have our personas to keep up, and as you must have heard a thousand times...” The smoking man batted his eye lashes and began with a fake falsetto. “It all happened so fast.” Nicks hands clenched into the mans coat so that it began to rip. “I'm just like you Nicky. Just trying to make the wasteland a better place. Besides, me and your partner know each other from back in the day.” 

Nick tossed the stranger back down and stood up. “That's it wise guy, nothing your saying is adding up. Red doesn't know anybody 'from back in the day'. Apparently, your stalker ass doesn't know everything you think you do or else you would have known they have been on ice and underground for 200 years.” The detective had lost all patience for this character. He had helped him patch Red up, but he had doubts it was because of pure intentions. He hoisted the Mysterious Stranger up by his lapels, ripping the coat even more, before shoving him towards the door. “Thanks for whatever you might have done or not lied about, but I have to now kindly ask you to stop stalking me or my partner. Goodbye.” 

He gave the Stranger a shove out the door and into the rain, but the stranger dug their heels in against the synth's strength. “Whoa no, whoa, whoa, hang on there Nicky, there's more going on here then Redtail has told you. You think that they were able to go from prewar life to being the star of the commonwealth just because they're easily adaptable? No, no, no, Nicky boy, everything's so much bigger then that.” 

Nick gave him a final shove out the door with a grunt. “And stay out!” The synth slammed the rickety door and shoved a chair in front of it for good measure. Nick hadn't seen crazy like that in a while, and in the Commonwealth that was saying something. He was a little disappointed that the mysterious gun-slinging hero he had been chasing after had actually just been a crazy stalker. He turned back to his downed partner to give them a more thorough examination. Besides the obvious missing arm, which was now sitting morbidly in the corner of the room next to the used syringes, there were various bruises and long scratches across their torso. He didn't want to know what they had looked like before the stimpaks. 

The steadying breathing of their partner mixed with the patter of the rain on the ceiling lent them to introspection. If he hadn't been so stubborn about his own limits then this wouldn't have happened. He had managed to dry out on his own thanks to Red getting his clothes off and setting them by the fire like an old toy you don't want to rust, but he couldn't imagine how worried they must have been. They fought a deathclaw just to keep his unconscious ass safe. Not to mention falling into the hands of that crazy stalker while they were at it. If their positions were switched...things wouldn't have been to different honestly. Red had been the first one he had called partner in a very long time and they hadn't done it lightly. 

He sat on their left side and with nothing to do until they awoke, he grasped their uninjured hand. Their pulse and breathing was good and even now, but he didn't know how much trauma they had really sustained. He decided that if Red didn't wake up before the rain ended, he was going to return the favor and carry them to the nearest outpost for some actual medical attention. To be honest, if they did wake up, they needed to go to a doctor anyway. Just with the difference of Nick probably having to talk them into it. He looked at the blood covered, but technically healed stump of their right arm. 'Well, maybe I wont have to convince them much.' This was the worst he had ever seen them injured. The synth's eyes wandered across their face to the large scar on their forehead. He couldn't help thinking about what that crazy stranger had said. 'How could someone from pre-war fit in so well when thrust into the Commonwealth?' Nick knew it was because their partner was a tough and adaptable sonofabitch. Nick had thought he could gather enough about their past through his own powers of observation, but he only realized now they there were large blank spaces he didn't know about their past. He trusted them with his life and he supposed that was all he needed to know, but sitting here rubbing the back of their gloved hand in a rain covered shack, he couldn't help but wonder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> should I end it here or keep going?


	4. Play it Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mainly weird headcanon's for my Sole so...sorry about that

It took a few hours for Red to wake up. Nick could have go into sleep mode to pass the time, but with their partner in their current state, he didn't dare. The first sign of consciousness they gave off was a broken groan. The synth snapped out of his introspection as his partner started to stir. They tried to get up, but due to one of their hands being held and the other being non existent, they didn't get far. The synth put his skeletal hand on his friend's chest to ground them. 

“Whoa there partner, you might want to rethink moving for a while.” There was another groan as they flopped fully back onto the bloody bed roll beneath them. “How do you feel?” 

Their was a thoughtful silence before Red responded. “Ow.” Nick let out an amused sigh, glad to know that their partner still had their sense of humor. “Before I open my eyes and confirm what happened-and I've always wanted to ask this-what happened last night?” 

Nick rubbed his chin to play along like he hadn't been replaying the events for the past few hours in his mind. “Well, what's the last thing you remember?” 

Red scrunched their eyes closed even harder, as if remembering was painful in itself. “You passed out. I carried you to this shack. Dealthclaw showed up. Deathclaw kicked my ass. Lost my arm...right?” They opened their right eye and looked down before promptly shutting it again. “Yep, I'm right. Then I saw you sauntering up like a bad ass and you started kicking the deathclaw's ass-thanks for that, by the way-and that's it.” 

Nick frowned. It might have been tempting to paint there new 'friend' out of Redtail's rescue, but he knew he couldn't lie to them. “Yeah, about that...that wasn't me.” Their partner opened one of their eyes again to stair at him quizzically. “Apparently, some wise guy has appointed himself your guardian angel. He took out the deathclaw and then brought you back here. We patched you up, but after discovering the special brand of crazy he was peddling, I sent him on his way. He seemed to think that he knew you, but the way he was talking didn't sit right with me. You don't know any mysterious men wearing trench-coats? Besides me of course.” The synth let out a small laugh before looking at his partner. Their eyes were wide open and looking at him, filled with silent shock. He stopped laughing. 

He tightened his grip on their hand. “This guy. How did he talk? Did he smoke? Did he have this smirk that you kind of wanted to slap off of him? Did he know my name? What did he call me?” Nick tried to keep them from getting to worked up. 

“Calm down partner. He kept calling you Tail-feather.” This caused a violent reaction as the cowboy tried to get up again reaching for the door. The synth had to physically retrain them in an odd hug. 

“No, Nick, you don't understand. I need to go get him. We need to find him. Please let me go, you don't understand!” The detective had no problem keeping them where they were because of their injured state, but it did not stop their squirming. 

“Red, stop. Calm down. You are not-- Stop moving!” They got them into a bear-hug, tightly cinching them against him. They kept trying to kick free but Nick held them mostly immobile. “Redtail, you need to calm down. He fought a deathclaw, I think he can survive an hour or two more in the rain. You're right, I don't understand. Please explain it to me, because right now, nothing you or him have said makes sense.” After one last full body lunge to try and get free, Red finally rag dolled in the synth's arms. 

After catching their breath for a few minutes they swallowed and thumped their head back against the synth's shoulder. “Okay. He...I...I'm actually...” They let out a frustrated noise. “This is so hard to explain.” 

Nick tightened his grip on them, still slightly worried they were going to bolt. “Try me.” 

Red sighed and closed their eyes again. “You don't know a lot about me. I did get frozen for 200 years and crawl out of the ground to this brave new world, but its actually not that new to me. I...god is this so hard to talk explain!” They opened their eyes and turned their head to Nick. “You heard about reincarnation? About how you can get reborn over and over as a different person?” The synth nodded slowly, not sure where this was going. “My existence is like that, but I always come back as the same person. I know it sounds like the worst bullshit, but I have lived about 5 lives like this. Always as Redtail. Always in the wasteland. I thought maybe this time I would get to live normal life, but nope, back here again.” Red looked at their partner trying to gauge his reaction to their confession. His face looked frustratingly neutral, so they continued. “I remember at different times every life. Sometimes its from birth, sometimes it's just suddenly with no warning. Whatever happens, I always keep my scars. Never lost an arm though, I wonder if I wont have an arm next time. That might be hard to work with...” 

Nick started slightly at something they had said. The stranger had said something about them never losing an arm before. This was crazy. He looked down at his partner, laying limply on the shack floor and in his arms. He may not believe them entirely, but he trusted them and that's what mattered. He readjusted his grip, not wanting to cut of circulating to the only remaining arm his partner had. “So what does your gentleman caller have to do with this?” 

Red grimaced a little. “He...is almost in the same boat as me. He is pretty much immortal. So, where as every time I die I have to start all over again he just kind of...keeps on going. We found each other even before we realized that I...we...had these powers. Every time I come back he has to hunt me down again. Not really sure why he does it.” Red looked down at their lost arm. “Oh yeah...'cause I'm kind of bad at solo work.” The cowboy seemed to be drained of all their energy as they sunk down farther into the synth's grip. “You can think I'm crazy or that he deathclaw hit me on the head and that's fine I can't blame you. I'm feelin' kind of tired so...maybe when I wake up, you can just forget I said anything.” 

This was certainly a lot to take in and Nick wasn't sure what to believe, but right now, making sure their partner was okay took precedence over delving into their odd background. They let go of them to lay them more vertically on the bedroll. They didn't protest, all there insistence to go after the stranger seemingly sapped from them. “Well Red, I'm not going to pretend I understand everything your saying, but I trust you. We can talk more when you wake up.” The cowboy made a neutral sound as they started to drift off. 

They fell into a deep sleep in no time as Nick was left to think about all the odd things that had just been dumped on him. He didn't know what he should believe. He trusted Red with his life and they just fought a deathclaw for him. He could suspend his disbelief of his partner's potential rebirths and immortal friends for now. He had seen lots of seemingly impossible things in his travels, he just had never expected one so close to him. If that's what Red thought, then Nick would stand by it. His mind still itched to try and find out more. He almost kicked himself that the stranger that he had forced out a few hours ago now held the potential to answer his questions. The synth allowed himself to relax slightly, knowing that their partner was safe for the moment and life would go on. Sometimes that was all Nick could ask for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know how long this is gonna be

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to drop me a line!  
> http://hawkscape.tumblr.com/  
> https://www.youtube.com/c/HawkScape  
> http://hawkscape.deviantart.com/


End file.
